Winter Wonderland
by WriterKos
Summary: The wind has died down to a cold breeze, and the dance of the crystals before my eyes creates an ethereal environment, as if time had stopped and the world itself had created a bubble in which sound, warmth and feeling had been casted away.


a/n: This story was written for the SeSa 2010 Fanfic Exchange for the NFA website. I happened to get a wonderful friend, and finally I was able to use some paragraphs that had been lingering in my HD for ages. We'll go back a little in time, to the beginning of Joy/Tim relationship.

I hope you enjoy, and may your New Year be filled with Hope, Faith, Grace and Joy.

K.

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**Title: Winter Wonderland  
Genre: Het  
Characters: Tim, OC, mostly. A little bit of the team, but mostly Tim and OC  
Pairings Tim/OC  
Rating, FR15  
Prompt: Something holiday-ish**

A/N: It's Christmas so let's play Carols. For background music, please load **Celtic Woman – Carol of Bells **in youtube and play it in the background while reading.

Carols of Bells

_Hark how the bells,_  
_sweet silver bells,_  
_all seem to say,_  
_throw cares away_

I cross the snow towards the lonely figure standing further down the woods. My booted feet make deep impressions on the snow, and it is with great difficulty that I take each new step.

I rub my gloved hands one against each other, and stop for a second. I glance back towards the house a couple of yards down the road where the others are silently celebrating Christmas before a warm fire, then I look forward to the forlorn figure that took refuge between the trees, in the cold and in the wind.

The snowflakes silently fall, creating a thick white blanket over the floor of the woods. The wind has died down to a cold breeze, and the dance of the crystals before my eyes creates an ethereal environment, as if time had stopped and the world itself had created a bubble in which sound, warmth and feeling had been casted away, never to be recovered again.

_Christmas is here,_  
_bringing good cheer,_  
_to young and old,_  
_meek and the bold,_

I shiver, feeling the cold going through the several layers of clothing I'm in, and slowly touching my skin all the way to my bones. My cheeks must be rosy with the cold by now, and I fix my scarf, in a vain attempt to protect my very cold ears.

I keep walking until I'm just in hearing distance of the forlorn figure supporting herself against an old pine. The snowflakes had gathered on her shoulders, and only the faint movement of her breathing indicated that she was a living being, not part of the winter wonderland scene that I just walked into.

I'm afraid of speaking, and breaking the silence imposed by the wind and the silent dance of snow. I think back about what caused this voluntary isolation away from the warmth, the team, me, and I sigh deeply.

_Oh how they pound,_  
_raising the sound,_  
_o'er hill and dale,_  
_telling their tale,_

I take another step closer to her, and flinch as a branch cracks under my heavy weight. Immediately I see her tense, and stand straighter, leaving the support of the tree behind.

She turns slowly, and even in the soft light reflected on the snow I see that there are tears tracks on her face, but her eyes are serious as she looks at me with the same deep brown eyes that fascinated me from the moment I met her nine months ago.

"Joy?" I say softly.

NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS

_Silent night_

_Merry, merry, merry, merry Christmas,_  
_Merry, merry, merry, merry Christmas,_  
_On on they send ,_  
_on without end,_  
_their joyful tone to every home_  
_Dong Ding dong ding, dong Bong_

It was a very innocent comment that caused a big problem, snowballing into a huge avalanche of reactions, neatly rolled up with several misunderstandings that led my very own profiler to isolate herself from the team.

She had started working with us nine months ago, after a crazy emotional rollercoaster weekend we had shared.

Gosh, I hadn't even known her last name then. Later on, I had had the surprise of my life to see myself partnered with the brunette that had shared such intense moments just a couple of hours before.

We acted purely professional during working hours but, after a shaky start, we had decided to pursue a relationship off hours. We kept a lid on our emotional interactions while we were around Tony, Ziva and Gibbs. Despite the incessant nagging from Tony and Ziva about the status of our relationship and Gibbs' constant glaring at us, we were slowly progressing to that comfortable stage where we're not only two people dating anymore, but a couple.

Outside NCIS walls, Joy dropped her super profiler persona and was a very pleasant person to be around. Not as intense as her profiling poker face, but she laughed and had a very wicked humor, probably resultant of growing in a big family with several brothers and sisters.

She was totally devoted to them, which pleased me greatly. Her respect and love for her parents, specially her father, shined through her face whenever she told me some story about them, or when I had to chance to witness the weekly checkout calls she gave to her father back in Montana, or wherever he might be with her mother.

Apparently, her mother travels a lot due to her work for the Air Force, and the retired Colonel just went along.

Joy had a very interesting view of Gibbs' rules: she completely disregarded them. Well, most of them.

Specially the rule number twelve: Never date a coworker.

Once, just some weeks ago, out of curiosity, I inquired why she had such disregard to Gibbs's rules to live by. Her answer had been very direct. She silently took my hand, and led it directly to her scar, bringing my cold fingers to touch the bullet hole that almost cost her life, her health and sanity.

Being shot in the line of duty while protecting the life of another hostage who had shared hell and torture with her in that dark basement had caused more wounds than the single round scar on her skin.

Wounds on the body heal. Painkillers can be administered to ease the physical suffering.

But there is no healing for wounds of the soul. No medicine can ease the anguish and pain of waking up from a three week coma, and finding out that the life that you knew was over.

Her team was dead, killed by the hands of her own partner and friend, who had shared hell with her.

No rules made by man can explain that.

Maybe because there is no explanation for it. It simply is.

She had almost died, and only for the intervention of her family she hadn't been crucified by the FBI in the subsequent investigation.

Her trust in human kindness had been badly shaken, and she would not let a silly rule that Gibbs' team seemed to see as gospel between herself and her chance of having a little tiny bit of happiness in this world.

She had almost died, and she was through with waiting for a better time, a better place.

And, apparently, she had decided that an important element in her tiny bit of happiness is…, well, me.

NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS

"Joy?"

She looks at me with her big liquid brown eyes, and I feel like an idiot. She overreacted to a simple conversation between Tony and Abby, and I tried to make it better and I ended up humiliating her in front of the whole team.

I saw the pain in her eyes when I've asked her for doing something that I know she considers very private, but it was just mistletoe, it wasn't the end of the world as we know it.

All she had to do was kiss me under the damn mistletoe and they would stop teasing us.

Instead, she stared at me as if I had asked her to step out of our clothes and make mad passionate love right before Gibbs, Ducky, Jimmy, Tony, Ziva and Abby, right over Ducky's mom's ottoman carpet.

She didn't say a word to me. She just shook her head outraged, turned around and left, slamming the door after herself. Well, after giving me a sucker punch in the kisser that left me seeing stars.

Leaving me there, standing under the mistletoe in Ducky's house with a confused face, while Gibbs stared daggers at me and Tony and Abby snickered at my faux pas.

"Man, you really know how to spoil the Christmas cheer, Probie?" teases DiNozzo.

I glare at him, and he just laughs, as if he hadn't caused the problem I'm in.

"Oh dear," says Ducky, looking out of the window to the retreating form of their profiler, "the wind is slowing down, but it is still freezing out there."

He turns to me, worried at the errant profiler. Gibbs sighs, and goes to the coat rack, to get his coat from it. "I'll talk to her."

"No," I stop him before he takes another step, and he looks at me with a frown, "I screwed it up, I fix it, Boss."

He glares at me for a moment, with that famous stare of his, but I hold my ground. If there's one thing that Joy thought me during these last months is that no one is perfect. We are all damaged, but some people are better in hiding it than others.

And the big Boss is a Master Jedi on it.

He looks at the door of Ducky's house, where we decided to gather for an early Christmas celebration before we are all gone for a well deserved four day holiday.

Tony had loudly announced his plans to stick around and have a nice party with Abby and Ducky and invited Ziva to hang around with them. She politely accepted, just because Ducky had invited her before his invitation.

Joy informed that she was leaving for Montana the following morning, and even invited me over, but I begged off. Regardless of how much I enjoy her company, I don't think I'm ready to meet her parents yet.

Gibbs had not shared his plans, but Jimmy had mentioned that he heard him talking with Ducky that he would stay with his father back in Stillwater.

Which leads me back to the problem at hand.

I know, I screwed up. I stood under the mistletoe and had no idea that, when she came to give me a glass of cider, Tony would be so crass to suggest that, as we both were under the mistletoe, I should kiss her.

Don't get me wrong, I love kissing Joy. But we're very private with our thing, and we are also very… let's say, enthusiastic in our dealings with each other.

Translating it in plain English: we refrain of open displays of affection in public because, well, we have very little control when we finally let it go.

We both blushed and could barely look at each other after Tony's suggestion, which made Abby laugh and suggest that Joy should at least give it a try, as I was a good kisser as per her experience.

I felt myself blushing, and Joy looked squinting her eyes at me. I shrugged, as she knew that Abby was in the past, but still, well, ahh man, that simply sucks.

"Come on, this is an American tradition, is it not?" asks Ziva, looking at both of us.

She sighed and looked at me again, silently asking me with her eyes now what ?

I shrug and look at Tony. He is smiling as the cat who ate the canary.

"What Probie? Forgot how to kiss a girl? Is it really that long?"

I got mad at him, I admit it, that was wrong. So wrong. So that's the reason why I turned and tried to kiss Joy.

Right in front of our Boss and our team.

You can guess the disaster then. I have to admit that Joy can pack a very good surprise right hook. I have to ask her to teach me that in our next workout session.

After punching me, she stared at me for a second, astonished at what she had done and then fury started boiling at her. I clearly saw the transition between the emotions, then she simply looked hurt.

She grabbed her jacket, and slammed the door, going to the windy snowfall outside.

So that's why I had to put my coat on and come out in the wind and the snow to try to convince her to join us again inside.

"Joy?" I ask out loud again.

She stares at me in silence. I can't take the curiosity burning in me, so I simply ask what's going in my mind.

"Why didn't you kiss me in there?"

She shuffles on her feet, trying to bring some warmth to them. She had stayed only a few minutes out here, between the punch, me getting the coat on along with the scarf and gloves, and following her. I notice that she just put her jacket on, and her hands are firmly in her pockets.

She must be freezing out here.

"I couldn't do it."

"Why not, it was only a kiss." She laughs incredulously at me.

"It has never been only a kiss between us, Tim." She hisses furious at something that I can not define.

I look at her, silently asking for an explanation. She runs a hand through her curly hair, frustrated.

"Every single time we kiss, in approximately five minutes we are naked." She hisses at me.

We stare at each other. Well, it was truth. Not a very Christmas-y thing to do in Ducky's house. Specially with big Boss and Tony, Abby and Ziva dying to figure out what kind of relationship we have.

We stand uncomfortably with the snow falling silently around them, the snow flakes dancing before my eyes.

"I could … we could control ourselves." I offer lamely, but she shakes her head, immediately dismissing it.

"It is not a matter of control." She looks to the side into the woods where the snow is making a white blanket on the floor.

"So what is it? How do you define this? Us?" I can hear the frustration in my own voice, and I curse myself as I feel that this conversation is important. We hadn't spoken about what we are to each other yet, we're just taking one day at a time.

"It is…" she struggles with the words, and I see she is clearly thinking about it. "It is pheromones."

"Pheromones." I repeat in a monotone voice.

"Nothing more than a chemical unbalance in the brain, resulted from the proximity of the" she looks up at me, and I know she can see the incredulous expression in my face at her theory but, still, she continues "other gender of the species. It happens all the time in the animal world."

Ok, that sounds comforting.

"That's what you say to yourself… that it's just chemistry."

"Yes, it is beyond our control. A biological imperative. To ensure the propagation of the species."

Time to step back and regroup the troops. Think a lot about what you're going to say, McGee.

"That's a load of bullshit."

Oops, too late, I said it.

"Tim."

"You can't reduce what we had, what we have in just scientific theory."

I know I sound hurt.

Probably because I'm hurt. Deeply hurt.

"So what do you want from me?" Now she is mad at me, and she takes a step closer so she can stare at me. "You want me to cheapen myself and pour out my heart in front of our coworkers so everyone can see it?"

I look at her furious eyes, and her brown hair in a wild mass of curls framing her delicate face. Man, I'm so whipped, because she's spitting nails mad at me and all I can think is how gorgeous she is when furious, and how much I want to make love to her. Right here, right now.

"No. I don't want that." I say, looking into her eyes.

"What do you want?"

"Why can't you say it?" Now I'm the one getting mad here, so I simply shout at her. "Why can't you say it to me?"

We pause. Both our breaths can be seen misting in the cold winter. The snow keeps falling muting any other sound.

"If I say it, it becomes real." I look at her and notice tears shimmering in her eyes. "If it becomes real, it is easier to be destroyed." A lonely tear falls down her face.

Now I feel like an ogre. Just because she acts like a tough person, I sometimes forget about how deeply hurt she's been in the past. And how vulnerable she lets herself be with me.

"I can't promise you that it will last. I can't promise that I won't hurt you. Or I could get hurt and leave you alone. You know I can't promise you that. Not in our line of work. But I can guarantee that we can do our best to make it work."

I open my arms, and in two steps she is in them, her arms around my waist. I feel how she's shivering with cold, and I open the lapels of my overcoat and put it around her, trying to gather some warmth around her.

She rubs her face on my chest, and I support my chin on her head, and I close my eyes as the soft scent of peaches invade my nostrils. It's a scent that I'll always associate with her skin and hair.

"I'm afraid, Tim." She whispers against my chest, her arms tightening around me.

"You, afraid? Joy, I'm terrified." I say against her hair.

And we stand there, as snow softly falls round us, and the faint music of carols is heard down the road, promising peace on earth to all good men.

_Hark how the bells,_  
_sweet silver bells,_  
_all seem to say,_  
_throw cares away_

THE END.

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Thanks to all who have been reading this saga and reviewing and adding to their favorites. It's nice to know that you are enjoying this.

May 2011 be the best year of your lives! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!


End file.
